If Kiev does not pay its gas bills by June 2, exports to Ukraine will be halted the next day, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said. Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev meanwhile urged demanding advanced payment from Kiev as early as Tuesday.

Miller told Medvedev on Monday that Gazprom will issue a
preliminary June bill to Ukraine’s Naftogaz on May 13. According
to Miller, Kiev already owes the company more than $3.5 billion, which compares to Gazprom’s annual gas
supply to Poland.

“In case Ukraine does not pay for the June supplies, Gazprom
will notify the Ukrainian side, before 10am on June 3, and the
volume of gas will be supplied to Ukraine in accordance with the
advanced payment,” Miller said.

He added that if Kiev pays for zero cubic meters of gas, it will
receive none.

Medvedev said that it is “time to stop nursing” Ukraine,
urging Miller to switch to advance payment as early as Tuesday.
He noted that Kiev has the money needed to pay back its debts.

“They have the opportunity to pay back before the end of May,
to pay the needed sum or at least some part of it, in order to
start related negotiations with Gazprom to demonstrate their
willingness to settle the debts. So far, we have not seen see any
willingness from the Ukrainian side, which is regrettable,”
Medvedev said, as quoted by Interfax.

Kiev had already received the first part of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) loan, the Russian prime minister said.

Russian energy minister, Aleksandr Novak, reminded that the sum
received by Kiev from the IMF amounts to $3.2 billion of the
total $17.1 billion agreed.

What’s more, there are “alarming” signals coming from
Kiev’s authorities that they won’t guarantee delivery of Russian gas to Europe,
the minister said.

“The Ukrainian energy minister, Yury Prodan, conveyed
alarming information saying that Ukraine does not guarantee gas
injections to underground storages in the summer period… which
means they do not guarantee the transit of gas to European
countries due to the lack of resources – and the unwillingness to
solve the problem in principle,” Novak said.

The EU, which has been supporting the Kiev regime, should
convince them to start paying for gas, Medvedev said.

“We have the right to expect that our European partners will
send some signals to the Ukrainian authorities about the debts
that have to be repaid,” the Russian PM said.

Currently, as much as 50 percent of Russian gas supplied to
Europe passes through Ukraine and around 30 percent of Europe’s
energy is imported from Russia, with some EU countries subject to
complete dependence on Russian gas.

Under the present terms, Kiev has to pay $485 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. The price tag
was raised in April from $268.50, after Russia withdrew all sorts
of discounts for Ukraine.

In April, Gazprom stopped the $100 discount it used to give Kiev
under the Kharkov Agreement on leasing the Crimean port of
Sevastopol to station the Black Sea Fleet, which is now part of
Russia.

Kiev has rejected the new price as “politically
motivated” and has been refusing to pay back the debt until
Gazprom cancels the “unjustified and unacceptable hike.”

While Kiev’s authorities claim the new gas prices are much higher
than any other European countries have to pay, it was revealed
that Lithuania, for instance, had been paying Gazprom $485 per
thousand cubic meters of gas until last week.